CRAFT CATALOGUE 2017

REGALE — CRAFTING THE TABLE

Our end of year exhibition — Regale, Crafting the Table looks at bringing together over 40 Australian craftspeople in a group exhibition which presents an array of approaches to tableware; exploring its history, materiality and function. Disrupting traditional notions of objecthood and utility, Regale incorporates a lavish ten-metre table and was co-curated by the staff of Craft and Linda Watchel.

'For thousands of years, the communal coming together to share food and drink has been at the heart of every human society, and in most cultures we find the act of eating and the tabletop at the centre of important events - religious ceremonies, seasonal celebrations, weddings, funerals, and social gatherings.2 Every culture worldwide and throughout history has developed its own distinctive etiquette, manners and customs surrounding ‘the dining table’, whether that be sitting on the ground together and eating with our hands, to sitting at 1 Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2 Meryle Evans and Lorna Sass, For the Tabletop, The American Craft Museum of the American Craft Council, 1980. elaborate table settings with decorative centrepieces, tableware, utensils and the associated accoutrement.' — excerpt from exhibition essay by Emma Mayall.